Official Languages Committee on May 4th, 2017

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

Absolutely.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

This has impacts on everything else.

This is troubling to me. Are there means to ensure that there is a certain percentage of bilingual people in these positions? Mr. Choquette said just now that a decrease in bilingual personnel is being seen. In your opinion, is this reasonable and understandable? What are the solutions?

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

It is certainly a question of leadership. We do not understand why there is resistance on this subject. In the regions, the representative of the organization is in the field. If the employees are expected to be bilingual and to provide service in both official languages, but the supervisor himself is not able to do so, this sends the wrong message. This is why we recommend that the managers in the regions be bilingual.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

You did mention in your comment that you do not support this type of response. However, what is the solution? What can the government do? What means should be used, in your opinion, to measure service quality?

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

You still have the ability to bring the managers of the organization before you and strongly encourage them to implement the recommendations.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

In addition, do you think that people clearly know the difference between Air Canada and CATSA? Often, when I ask questions, people do not seem to know the difference between the two organizations. Do you agree? If yes, what can we do to better inform people about these two organizations? You say that there are 30 people. The others may have made comments to Air Canada thinking that the employees worked for Air Canada.

Is there a problem? Can you suggest a solution?

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

First of all, it is true that people do not always understand their rights. As was said earlier, people who do not travel much are more nervous, especially in front of a person in a position of authority, and they do not want to make waves when they have to go through security. This is a difficult situation.

In addition, these are all different companies. Should they unite? Should the airport authority that hosts all these agencies do more advertising to tell people that they have rights and to assert them? This is a good question. I do not really have a suggestion.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I am going to allow you to reflect on that, with time.

There is also the question of consistency. As you say, these three different suppliers do not have to follow the same rules and do not have the same contracts. This is an enormous deficiency. It is clearly articulated and there does not seem to be a solution. That is troubling to me.

Now, the Air Canada people are talking about doing slightly more direct recruiting. All the same, I give them credit. They mentioned that they were working with the Réseaux de développement économique et d'employabilité, or RDÉE, in the provinces and in certain regions in the west. That is interesting.

What is CATSA doing in this regard?

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

I think CATSA was not doing very much. However, the purpose of our audit is to propose real ways of doing things which, in our opinion, will greatly improve the situation.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I give you a lot of credit, because you are focusing on a number of targets. I congratulate you for June 2017. However, we would have to be sure to conduct an audit quickly and check whether it is in place.

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

Yes.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

This is still troubling to me.

Do I still have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

No, it is finished.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I was just beginning my remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Samson.

We give the floor to Ms. Lapointe.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you again for being with us.

I will allow myself to take this opportunity. A bit earlier, Mr. Samson had a question.

You talked about contracts and subcontracting.

Have you had a chance to examine the clauses of these contracts? Have you been able to see, in the service offers, what was said about bilingualism? Was it conclusive? Was it incisive enough?

[Jean Marleau]

I would say yes, in general. We saw certain things, but there were shortcomings. The recommendations made in the audit talk about exactly that, in other words, that some of these obligations should be strengthened in order to obtain consistent quality, but also somewhat higher quality too.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

That is fine, thank you.

In the documents, certain airports are discussed. You said earlier that it was easier to respect the bilingualism issue in Ottawa and in Montréal, because there are a lot of bilingual people in the population. I have the data here. These are overall scores, and they appear in table 3 which is titled "Outcomes of Observations in Airports, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, 2012–2013".

Jean-Lesage International Airport in Quebec City has a score of 91%. Is this because it was difficult to recruit bilingual people?

For Montréal, the score is 95%. It seems to me that it should be 100%, considering there is a bilingual population pool available.

In Ottawa, where it seems easy to recruit because of the bilingual population, the score is 79%. So I am troubled, because you said that this was a problem in Toronto. You know that Toronto is the hub for transport all over America. Many people come from Montréal and Quebec City, and they are routed through Toronto on their way to somewhere else. You alluded just now to people who do not travel often and are more nervous. This is very troubling to me.

There are troubling percentages, considering your observation about the ease of finding bilingual people in Ottawa and in Montréal. In Quebec City, I assume that people, like Mr. Généreux, are bilingual. There must be others.

[A voice]

No, it is not 100%.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I would like to hear what you think about this, because that troubles me a little.

[Pascale Giguère]

Are you talking about what we, we have observed?

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Yes.

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

Was the active offer provided? Was the service available? These are the elements dealt with in our observations about service.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The visual active offer is good, but the active offer in person and the availability of services are less so. Is that correct?

[Ghislaine Saikaley]

Absolutely. Moreover, that is what we are still observing today. There is a lot of misunderstanding. Institutions make efforts and tell their staff that they have to make an active offer and that it is really important. These employees make an active offer, but because the service is not available, it is of no use. The active offer and the service go hand in hand. They have understood that it is necessary to make an active offer at this stage, but not why it is necessary. Active offer consists of indicating that a service is available in both languages.